War is declared on plastic bags on Sal, Cape Verde!

Plastic bags are a blight on our landscape here on these beautiful islands, hundreds of them can be seen in the road, on trees, stuck against fences and worst of all, floating around in the sea.

Unfortunately there is very little awareness of the problem amongst the population as well as shop owners and plastic bags are given away for every single small purchase.

Cotton bags will be produced by RA-AMAO (Associação das Mulheres da África Ocidental)

“According to the mayor, plastic represents some 11% of all domestic trash produced on Sal. “The worst part is that some of this trash does not end up in the dump. It goes into the sea, into barren plots of land. We have veritable Christmas trees of plastic bags. And that’s where the problem lies. Even the plastic that goes to the dump ends up being bad for the environment, because, as we know, plastic is made out of petroleum and takes 400 years to decompose in nature. Until then, it continues to produce heavy metals that destroy and poison the soil, producing toxic fumes.” (Read the news report from A Semana here).
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